FINE WOOL SHEEP DUSBANDRY. 119 
when close in-and-in breeding between the artificial 
specres which have been partly moulded by man pyro- 
duces loss of vigor and degeneracy, and sometimes 
this fatal overthrow is but one step away from the 
pinnacle of apparent success. 
But 1 would quite as sedulonsly abstain from run- 
ning round from family to family and individual to 
individual to obtain a perpetual recurrence of disturb- 
ing and unnecessary crosses. 
And when crossing is resorted to, let it be in a uni- 
form way and direction. Let every breeder establish 
his own standard and breed steadily to it. The 
French did this. Mr. Jarvis did this. Both, there- 
fore, succeeded in establishing anew variety, not as 
uniform as an old variety, yet far more so than if 
either had pursued a deviating and changeable course. 
The sheep owner who changes the family and style 
of his rams every two or three years—now, for ex- 
ample, getting short, thick fleeced, and now long, 
open fleeced ones; now yolky and dark, and now dry 
and light-colored ones; now low, broad carcassed, and 
who has not an abundance of theoretical knowledge, and an abundance 
of experience and long observation united. And even then I am in- 
clined to think that, like the poet, he must be Jorn to his business! 
Inasmuch then as it requires so much skill to detect those qualities 
and. tendencies (some of them invisible and only to be ascertained by 
inferences drawn from numerous minor facts) which should prevent 
in-and-in breeding in one instance, or indicate its propriety in another, 
it is perhaps best that the time-honored public and traditionary belief 
on the subject should remain unshaken, viz.: that interbreeding be- 
tween animals of any degree of affinity is wrong and highly danger- 
ous As long as mankind started peopling the earth in this way, 
under the direct eye and provision of their Creator, it will hardly do to 
pronounce it malum on se, but let tit be considered malum prohibitum, 
if the public pleases, in the strongest sense | 
